MoveOn Challenges Obama's Cozy Relationship With Wall Street

Ryan Grim @ The Huffington Post -MoveOn.org is letting President Obama know that it does begrudge the multimillion-dollar bonuses being paid to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, both of whose banks were bailed out by the American taxpayer.

The liberal advocacy group urged its members Thursday to call the White House to let the president know that they object to his cozy relationship with Wall Street bankers ("I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," Obama said in the interview that raised eyebrows when it was released Thursday. "I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.")

Obama told Bloomberg News that he is just as shocked by banker bonuses as he is by salaries paid to professional athletes, noting that "there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don't get to the World Series either, so I'm shocked by that as well."

Citing athletic salaries is part of the standard rhetoric used by conservatives and the super-wealthy to justify exorbitant salaries. As surprising as it was to hear the rhetoric from Obama, MoveOn.org noted that there's a major difference between bankers and well-paid athletes: the bankers were bailed out with taxpayer dollars after they nearly brought the global financial system to the ground. Read more.